Environment

The Environmental Center at the University of North Florida is hosting its first annual Green Week, starting Monday, Oct. 25, and running through Friday, Oct. 29, in an effort to make UNF a “greener” campus. The week will kick off with a tree planting and will end with a boat expedition on the St. Johns River.

Here are the following 2010 Green Week activities:

Green Ospreys Tree Planting: 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 25, Student Union Pond—Green Ospreys, a new environmental club on campus, will plant nine cherry trees surrounding the pond in the core of campus in front of the Student Union. UNF President John Delaney will plant the first tree.

The commercial and recreational harvest season for stone crab claws in Florida opens on Oct. 15. The season will remain open through May 15.

Stone crab claws must be at least 2 3/4 inches in length to be harvested legally, and claws may not be taken from egg-bearing female stone crabs. Recreational harvesters are allowed to use up to five stone crab traps, and there is a daily bag limit of one gallon of claws per person or two gallons per vessel, whichever is less.

Reserve a campsite, pitch your tent and stay the night under the stars with family and friends. Free pancake breakfast for campers on Sunday am! Sites include a fire ring with wood for a campfire. Choose your site now at the Recreation Office, Adele Grage Cultural Center, 716 Ocean Blvd.

DEADLINE for reservations is October 9th or until sold out. So reserve early. Visit www.coab.us/events for registration form, site map and schedule of events.

USA Today - By the early 1990s there were only 20 to 25 Florida panthers left out of what was once a large and thriving population – and those that remained were sickly and inbred, destined for extinction within 20 years, experts estimated. So in 1995 conservation managers moved eight wild-caught female pumas from Texas to the area – a reintroduction so successful that between 1995 and 2008 a total of 424 panther births have been documented.